Do you find petrified wood?

[txdon]

Jim, yesterday I saw an add in the green sheet of an individual selling petrified wood. The add said he had "40,0000 pounds" (couldn't tell if he meant 40,000 or 400,000 pounds). He was selling the petrified wood for a dollar a pound.

My uncle has since died. I'm going to have to get the complete story from one of my cousins. He gave it to the church in Fedor and it's sitting between the cemetery and the church.

 

[nue2farm]

We have been to some of the same places, I am sure. The pictures look like a place we stopped at. I have some petrified wood from Ariz. and several pieces from Ark. I have not noticed any here, in Missouri, yet. I think most states have it.

 

[jinman]

I think most states have it.

I think you are correct, especially states that also have large coal deposits. I also think that there's a lot of petrified wood buried underground. I find it on my property because I have a lot of erosion. Otherwise, it would be buried 8 to 10 feet deep and I'd never know it was there. Dry creekbeds are a good place to look, but you have to have a sharp eye because most external features may have been eroded away by the water and sand.

 

[Redbug]

Jim, TxDon...I wonder what it would look like if you slabbed it on a mineral saw and polished it? Might be some good material for a foyer floor...

 

[Egon]

It's most easily found in higher burocratic Government Office's.:thumbsup:

 

[jinman]

Jim, TxDon...I wonder what it would look like if you slabbed it on a mineral saw and polished it? Might be some good material for a foyer floor...

If you can find a piece with nice silica-quartz heartwood center, it can be cut and polised up nicely. Some cross-sections look a lot like geodes with solid centers.

 

[EMB5530]

Here in Kansas my dad and I (bout 15-20 years ago) used to go looking for it all the time. He has probably stored up over 10 tons of it from a 3000 acre area we used to hunt.
I believe that the type of tree was(probably misspelled)centropolis but the pieces ranged in characteristics from really dark and hard as heck to really light white and rather soft(great for knife handles). Some of the pieces were covered in crystals and I always thought that was really cool(and it seemed to impress the girls at school)
My father has started to go back and look for more just recently and I think it would be a great hobby to go do w/ him again.
Just need to stop and make the time for it.
BTW thanks for the OP it has brought back great memories.:thumbsup:

 

[forgeblast]

My great uncle joe was a rock hound in arizona, and did a bunch of polished stone jewerly. I have a great collection of rocks from him, I have to figure out a way to polish, label, and hang them.

 

[jinman]

My great uncle joe was a rock hound in arizona, and did a bunch of polished stone jewerly. I have a great collection of rocks from him, I have to figure out a way to polish, label, and hang them.

Harbor Freight has several sizes of rock and mineral tumblers along with polishing grit. If you have large flat areas, you need to invest in a rotary table with polishing discs. You'll need a fixed abrasive disc for flatening and first polising, and then probably two discs with rolling abrasive. I used to use a diamond paste and a 0.05 micron silica as a final. Of course a jewelers rouge wheel would also be helpful. A full polishing shop can be quite expensive.

For display of my grandsons 4" diameter geode, my wife found a wire rack that kind of looks like a large business card holder (like a "Z" laying on its side). She found the first one at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for around $4.50. Then she looked at a dollar store on the way home and found the indentical rack for $1. If it hadn't been over 50 miles to return the one to BB&B, she would have done it.

 

[forgeblast]

Thanks Jinman, I have been looking at getting some polishing wheels, I have the paste already, just waiting for the price on the wheels to come down.
I forgot all about rock tumblers, I may have one.
thanks again.